Greenhouse Gas Reductions

In my article on the 13th of April, City Shaping Workbook and the new "Living City", I tried to explain that claims made of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is false.


I received a media inquiry as what I had written didn't really come across clearly. This is how I got my point across to him.


Let's say the CNV only had one person living in it, let's call him Darryl. Darryl is quite concerned about the City's emissions, let's call it 1 unit,as he thinks that the world will end if he doesn't not reduce his carbon footprint.


So he works hard and reduces his footprint by 10% for .9 of an unit but Darryl has invited his friend from Ontario, let's call him Craig, to live in the CNV creating a population of 2. Darryl has convinced Craig to build his new house so he also has a footprint creating another .9 of an unit.


Darryl loudly says how he saved the planet as the per capita emissions in the CNV is .9 and down 10% but the total footprint of the CNV is 1.8, whatever influence emissions have on the planet acts by actual emissions - not per capita.


To take this back to the real CNV, when Council approves the 20 story building on the Extra Foods site, they increased our footprint by an obscene amount. No people or cars were located at that site prior but hundreds of each will be there in a year or so. All at .9 per person but all an increase to the CNV's footprint.


This will happens at every development, from that tower to every RS-1 single family that is turned into a duplex with two secondary suites and a coach house.


There is many reasons that the Mayor is hell-bent to increase our population and density but his "Green" reasoning is just misleading spin.